Manipulated
by Bronze Barometer
Summary: Rebecca's never really been that interested in pokemon, but now she doesn't have much of a choice. At least it's just a normal pokemon journey, right? Right?
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: Pokémon isn't mine.

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"Seventy-one, seventy-two, seventy-three… done. All here." Anthony How stood and stretched. "Another day with no casualties." He felt… relieved. That was the word. There wasn't any reason to feel that way- after all, his uneasy feeling all week had been just that, a feeling- but he finally felt as if he would no longer have to jump every time he heard a footstep, or freeze whenever somebody mention debt, or pokémon, or-

"Hi, Mr. How." This time, when Anthony froze, it was quite literal. Before the poor man had time to marvel at the fact that he hadn't heard the bell by the door ring, or wonder where he had heard that particular voice before, there was a block of ice covering every inch of his body.

The girl standing in the corner of the room frowned. "I think you overdid it a little, Maj," she muttered to the creature standing beside her. She was answered by a series of angry sounds (not that a weavile ever _doesn't_ sound angry) that, if translated into English, probably would have included quite a few four-letter words inappropriate for children's ears. The girl endured her pokémon's verbal abuse a few moments before interrupting. "At least uncover his face, 'kay? It's kinda hard to talk to him like that. And I think he's suffocating."

The weavile grumbled a while longer, but the ice slowly started to melt away from the man's face.

The girl stepped forward, so that she was sure the man could see her clearly. "Now, Mr. How, we have some business to discuss."

------

"_Yesterday evening Anthony How, beloved owner and manager of Petalburg City's Poké Mart, was found in critical condition in his own store. He suffered from severe hypothermia, presumably caused by an attack from an ice type pokémon. All of his own pokémon were missing, the money in the cash register was gone, and the store had been completely wrecked."_

"Oh, no!" My mother had walked into the room, and was staring at the television with a cross between fascination and horror.

"_Mo-om…_" I broke in, already knowing what was next.

"And right when _you're_ going to Petalburg. Imagine!" She was about to use her worry about my safety as a disguise to guilt trip me. I could tell. I turned back to the TV, determined to ignore whatever she said.

"_Anthony How is a respected man in our community. Besides being the owner of Petalburg's Poké Mart, he is well known for being an outstanding pokémon trainer. Last year he powered his way through the entire Elite Four, although he was at last defeated by the champion. This February he announced plans to quit training and settle down with his fiancée."_

Mom's voice broke through the sound of the TV again. "You know, I'd feel a lot better if you had your own team of pokémon to take with you." I briefly considered pointing out that the attacked man was supposedly a very powerful pokémon trainer, then decided it wasn't worth it. "I know you take Oceancracker with you on these trips, but he's not much protection, and I know you hate him."

Oceancracker is Mom's rapidash (don't ask where she got the name. I don't know, either.) A few years ago, when I was eleven years old, she tried to give him to me to be my "partner on my pokémon journey". I told her thanks but no thanks, I wasn't interested. Unfortunately, somewhere in the three feet between me and her the message apparently changed from "I'm not really that excited by the thought of traveling around the country yelling orders at non-human creatures" to "I _specifically _hate your rapidash" and since then she's been trying to find the perfect pokémon for me. I really wish she wouldn't. I don't dislike them, really. They are here, and we are here, and so we coexist. I just don't see why that line between coexisting and becoming battling partners needs to be breached.

Mom waited for a few seconds, apparently waiting for me to respond. Then she sighed. I took that as a sign that she had made her point and the lecture was over, and shot out of my seat, simultaneously pulling on my coat and grabbing my bags. Mom's pokémon lectures can last up to an hour, and if she was going to end this one this early I wasn't giving her time to reconsider. After managing to put on my backpack, throw an empty duffel bag over my shoulder, and hook Cracker's pokéball to my belt without any protest from my mother, I headed for the door. I didn't look back at her, because after these talks Mom always has this sad look, like I've disappointed her horribly by not sharing her love for pokémon. I only took the time to call out, "Bye, Mom! I love you!" before shutting the door behind me.

----

Let me first say that I truly didn't hate Cracker when Mom offered to give him to me. I didn't know him yet. In fact, I had honestly considered taking him, because he was pretty and I was young enough to be impressed by that. But now I'm glad I refused. Oceancracker is, honest to Mew, _the_ meanest, worst tempered pokémon you've ever met. I haven't made a single trip to Petalburg in which he hasn't tried to throw me at least three times before we had even reached Oldale Town. I used to complain about it, but my mom would only laugh and say that it helped me build physical stamina. I don't think she's ever tried to ride a tame ponyta before, let alone one that doesn't want to be ridden.

So I'm being honest when I say it was only by luck that I made it to Petalburg City in one piece. When we finally reached the city Cracker was galloping at full speed, and I was latched onto his neck, screaming, all dignity gone.

We could possibly have continued that way through the entire city and then past it, until Cracker ran out of energy (and I abandoned his sorry butt wherever it was we ended up and walked back home) if it weren't for some good Samaritan who saw us and decided to help (as opposed to most of the people who were either watching, awestruck, or laughing hysterically). I'm not sure exactly what happened, but the next thing I knew I was on the ground and there was an ursaring holding Cracker a foot off the ground. For a few seconds I lay still, stunned. Then a boy, I guess the ursaring's trainer, appeared in front of me. "Are you gonna call your rapidash back, or what?" he asked, frowning.

That snapped me out of…whatever it was I had been suffering from. I fumbled with the pokéball for a second, and then managed to point it at Cracker and whisper, "Oceancracker, return," as quietly as I could. Cracker was returned to his pokéball, where he could do relatively little harm, but the boy was still standing there, staring incredulously. I groaned, already guessing what he was about to say.

"Oceancracker? What kind of name is that?" Apparently my whispering hadn't been quiet enough.

----

AN: Reviews with any kind of criticism are appreciated. Even if you think it just sucks, tell me so. I can take it, I promise.


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: I don't own Pokemon.

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It was four o' clock in the afternoon, according to the analog clock on the wall. I'd entered the little restaurant at noon, and was quite impressed with my ability to stretch three sandwiches, a large soda, and a small order of fries into a four-hour period. I would have just stuck with one sandwich and a soda, but after half an hour of sitting at the table and staring at the clock the manager told me that I was going to have to order something or get out. I still wasn't really mentally prepared to leave, so I chose the former.

Why hadn't I just left when I was asked? I was scared, to tell the truth. Cracker was _not _going to be happy about being lifted a foot off the ground this morning. Ever since Ursaring Boy (I never did catch his name) dropped me off at the post office with orders to be careful, the pokéball holding the stupid creature had been rattling nonstop. For a while I had been worried that he might be able to break out without my permission, but by this point I figured that if he had the ability to leave by himself, he would have done it a long time ago. I could have walked, but I wouldn't have gotten home until tomorrow, and I couldn't afford Mom overreacting and sending out a search party again. I'll never understand how a woman willing to send her only child on a journey across the country gets so panicked if I get home late.

I stared defiantly at the bite of sandwich still on my plate. I'd officially spent every cent I'd brought with me now, so as soon as I finished this sandwich I would have to face the music. I was distracted by a female voice behind me.

"Your hair is green."

I nearly jumped completely out of my seat. I don't like being startled, okay? As I turned around, I was completely expecting to see a kid standing behind me. That's the kind of off topic, unnecessary observation you'd expect from, say, an 8-year-old. So I was kind of surprised to see a girl older than me holding a zigzagoon to her chest. If I was going to make a rough estimation, I'd say she was about five foot ten- in other words, a lot taller than a relatively short person like me. She had strawberry blonde hair and dark blue eyes, and for the most part looked completely normal.

"I'm sorry?" I asked. Maybe I'd misunderstood what she was saying.

"Your hair is green," She repeated. Well, it was true. Lst year I had died my hair green as an act of rebellion. My mom was upset for a few days, but then she realized that dying your hair green is a trend a lot of top Pokémon trainers had been following lately, and she decided that I must be trying to imitate them, which made her incredibly happy. That _almost _made me mad enough to dye it back, but the color had started to grow on me, so I decided just to ignore her.

Still, I didn't see why this girl felt the need to tell me that. After a few seconds of waiting, to make sure she wasn't planning on adding anything, I decided she expected an answer.

"Well, your hair is blonde. So there." Darn, I'm clever.

The girl made an expression somewhere between a grimace and a smile. Then she dropped her zigzagoon to the floor (without any warning. I couldn't help but feel sorry for it as it hit the ground hard) and stuck her hand out. "Sorry, I've made a bad first impression again, haven't I? I'm Lux."

I shook her hand (what else could I do, without seeming rude?), but I didn't really feel like giving my name out to somebody I still wasn't sure was exactly sane. Instead, I changed the subject. "Your pokémon…"

She seemed to notice it for the first time. She glared at it for a few seconds, and then shook her head. "He's not mine. I mean, I caught him two days ago, but tomorrow I'll let him go and find another one." She brightened up. "I figure that if I keep doing that for long enough, I'll have an entire wild zigzagoon colony loyal to me!"

Maybe I was just hurting myself by participating in this conversation at all, but I couldn't help it, seriously. "But what good is a colony of wild zigzagoons gonna do you?"

The girl (Lux, I suppose, but that's such a ridiculous name, and I feel like a fool calling anybody by it) had slid herself into one of the chairs at my table and was in the process of calling a waiter over, but something about my comment (maybe the fact that she'd found somebody crazy enough to have this discussion with her) made her turn around and stare at me with a somewhat more serious expression than before. "Well, the zigzagoons are just a test. I mean, if you can do it with any pokémon, it makes sense to start with a group as stupid and trusting as them. Next I'm gonna do staravias." She must have seen my confusion, although I guess she misinterpreted it. "They're a type of pokémon from the Sinnoh region. I take it you don't travel much."

I only took the time to hear the first sentence before deciding to ignore the rest of her comment. When I worked it out in my head, it sounded disturbingly like a step-by-step plan to build a mind-controlled army and take over the universe, and I decided I had been watching too much TV.

For a few minutes we sat in an awkward silence (well, it was awkward for me. Lux was humming and swinging her legs back and forth as she waited for her meal, which I guess she'd forgotten that she never ordered.) Suddenly, completely without warning, Lux stood up, eyes wide. "Oh, no, not again! I got distracted again, didn't I? No, no, no, no, no…" I don't even know whom she was talking to (I certainly hope it wasn't me, because I had no idea what she was talking about) but she was digging in her purse with such fervor it was scary, throwing things every which way.

I decided to do the humane thing. "Um, sorry? Can I help you… with whatever you're doing?"

She ignored me, and kept digging in her purse. For the first time in this entire scene (I swear, I hadn't thought about it before. Walking out on people is rude) I considered just leaving her to her purse and her zigzagoon that she didn't even like. But then I remembered Cracker, and decided to stick with the lesser evil.

Finally, she emerged from her bag with three things. One looked like a credit card, in a way, but it had Lux's picture and name (it just said LUX, which was weird, because don't they need a last name for these official kinds of things?) and a bunch of numbers that made no sense to me. The other one looked suspiciously like a business card, although it was bent completely out of shape. The third was a photo. Lux was looking back and forth from me to the photo.

I stood up. "Listen, I'm sorry, I have to go-" I turned to walk away, but before I'd gotten a foot away from the table Lux had grabbed my wrist.

"No you don't." Her voice was different. It was steely now, without the childishness it had had just a few seconds ago. "I watched you sit here for three hours. If you had somewhere to go you would have left by now, right?" Now, that doesn't sound stalkerish or creepy in the least. "Now, listen- _stop that_-" I'd just kicked her in the shin, but apparently this girl was made of steel, because she didn't even wince. Instead, her hold on my wrist tightened. "Listen, I just need to talk to you, okay?"

I shook my head, because obviously she was lying. People do not stalk other people for hours because they just want to talk to them.

Lux examined the empty restaurant, apparently judged that there was nobody around to see her threatening a poor, innocent kid (and where had the waiter gone, anyway? Was she paying him to stay away from this?), and then hissed in my ear, "_Listen, if I planned on killing you I could have let Maj loose a long time ago."_ Oh, that was comforting. But the mention of killing immediately drained all of the defiance in me.

I let out an exaggerated sigh, then said in the most bored way I could manage (I was scared out of my mind, but she didn't need to know that), "Fine. I'll listen. Just make it quick. I've got things to do, people to see."

Lux smiled (happy Lux was back. Gosh, how moody _was _this chick?). Then she launched into her sales spiel. I only caught bits and pieces, because she talked faster than my brain could interpret, but I think I caught the gist of it. She worked for a company called PTTNI (Pokémon Trainer Traveling Necessities Incorporated), and I'd probably heard of them (I had, and I'd always thought the name was ridiculous, but she didn't let me interrupt to tell her so), but she _specifically _worked for a section called the TSP (Trainer Sponsorship Program), which sponsored beginning trainers, and made sure they had proper adult supervision, and bought their supplies for them without any cost to said beginning trainer, but in return the trainer had to pay the TSP half of his/her winnings, and Lux _really _needed to add one more trainer to meet her quota for the year, and no, she hadn't procrastinated, but one of her trainers had quit yesterday, and she knew I wasn't a trainer already because if I was why would I have been using that insane rapidash that obviously wasn't mine this morning, and so I should help her out by signing up for the program.

After Lux had finished, I stared at her for a few seconds, completely at a loss for what to say. I settled with, "That was the longest run-on sentence I have ever heard." Then I started to walk out.

She caught up with me a few steps later, but luckily she didn't grab my arm again. She did whine, though. "But…" I had a feeling this was the point where most people would go, "But_,_ _Becca…" _in the most annoying voice they could manage, but I'd never told her my name. "But, why not?" Did she really have to push the subject like that?

I don't know why I said what I did next. It was extremely stupid of me. I can only say that I was out of my mind with exhaustion by this point, after having to deal with not only a long trip with Cracker but a half hour talk with this girl, plus the promise of a long walk back home (by this point I'd decided that I just couldn't deal with Cracker again today, even if I _didn't _get home until tomorrow. "I don't even _like _pokémon! Isn't it bad enough that I have to deal with Mom telling me to start on some stupid journey at home, without strangers in other cities nagging me?" I was yelling by this point, but I didn't care. There was nobody in the restaurant to hear, anyway. If I'd paid attention I would have noticed that Lux had stopped following me after the second sentence.

---

I woke up to sounds of conversation downstairs. For several minutes I stayed in bed, still half asleep. After all, it was only- I checked the clock- it was only seven o' clock on a Sunday morning. Then I sat up. Talking. _Talking, _downstairs. My mom and I are the only ones in the house. Who in the world would be talking, downstairs, in our house?

Any thoughts of having a nice, peaceful day at home were dashed as my mom called. "_Becca! Rebecca, get down here! We've got a visitor!"_


	3. Chapter 3

Disclaimer: Pokemon isn't mine

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When Mom said we had visitors, I knew something was wrong. All of our friends know to _never _come to our house before noon on Sunday, because more than likely Mom would either be fast asleep (if you're lucky) or awake, and in a horrible mood because it was before she liked to wake up. That was another reason I sensed something was off. Why was Mom awake and in such a good mood at 9 o' clock on Sunday morning?

So I was getting dressed as slowly as I possibly could. If it turned out somebody was holding Mom hostage and forcing her to act cheerful I would have to save her, but I'd take my own good time about it.

My thoughts were interrupted by another yell from my mother. "_Rebecca! Get your butt down here _right now, _or I swear, you will be so grounded!"_ Well, maybe somebody was holding her hostage and forcing her to stay awake, but I scrapped the "act cheerful" part. I sighed and headed downstairs, deciding that taking the time to change out of yesterday's clothes was not worth being grounded. Since there are no fun things to do around Littleroot anyways, being grounded by my mother usually included a lot of super unpleasant chores instead.

At first I didn't recognize the girl sitting next to my mother. It wasn't that she looked that different from before, but I had a bad case of selective memory, and I'd put yesterday out of my head as an altogether traumatic experience. But after a minute I regained my memory (and, what felt like an entire minute later, my composure) and I managed to finish my walk down the stairs as if I wasn't bothered at all. I wasn't sure I could keep my voice steady if I talked, though, so I settled for glaring full-force at my mother and our "guest".

Mom cleared her throat. Then, in her especially low voice that usually means she's trying to refrain from yelling at me in public, she said, "Rebecca."

"Yes, Mother?" I decided the super respectful approach was best.

Mom glared at me. I guess I missed the "respectful" mark a little, and accidentally veered into full-scale "smart alec" territory. "What time did you get home last night?" she asked.

I winced. "That is a very good question, Mot- Mom." That seemed like a perfectly good answer, so I shut my mouth afterwards.

Mom sighed. "Fine, then, I'll answer for you. You didn't get home until twelve in the morning." A very unacceptable time, but it's not like I didn't have a reason. Maybe Mom secretly has mind-reading powers, because her next question was, "And why exactly did you get home at midnight?"

That caught me off guard. Mom _never _gave me a chance to defend myself in these situations. I didn't want to let her rethink her generosity, so I leapt into an explanation without thinking. "It's 'cause I walked-"

"Why?"

"Because I didn't want to ride your stupid rapidash, okay? I preferred to leave him in his pokéball and not die."

I don't know why (hadn't Mom already known I didn't like Cracker?) but that answer made Mom really angry. Her face turned beet red, and her voice lowered even more. "Don't _lie _to me, Rebecca Collin! I know exactly why you walked back home! Imagine, leaving Cracker behind just because you weren't getting along with him! What if you'd been attacked on the way?"

Suddenly more memory came rushing back. Walking for _seven hours _to get back home, reaching the house, thinking that Mom was already asleep (although evidently she wasn't, if she knew exactly when I'd returned), reaching for Cracker's pokéball, intending to put it back in Mom's room, realizing he wasn't there, collapsing into bed and falling asleep while trying to think of a solution. Oops.

I hastened to tell this all to my mom, but another voice interrupted mine. I was surprised enough to stop my explanation, because I'd forgotten _that girl_ was still sitting on our couch, watching our entire conversation. "Oh, Mrs. Collin, I'm sure it was an accident. After all, when somebody that unused to pokémon is near one that strong and angry- well, it was smart of her to leave him. She might have died if she hadn't." Lux. It was her, all right. Standing next to my mother, with her hand on her shoulder comfortingly, as if they were old friends.

I was angry. No, that's an understatement. I was _furious._ "_Why the heck are you in our house, anyway?_" I shouted at her. I was about to take a swing at her, but my mom stopped me.

"_Rebecca Collin_, you settle down this instant." I didn't stop glaring at Lux, but Mom's voice brought me back to my senses. So instead of punching the girl like I was so inclined to do, I just stood with my arms crossed, looking for the entire world to see like a spoiled child whom has just been rebuked. Lux wasn't being any more mature, though. She was sticking her tongue at me from behind Mom's back. Mom continued talking, apparently unaware. "Now, Rebecca, you should consider yourself lucky. I should ground you for this-" I winced "-but Erin here was nice enough to bring Oceancracker back after she found him, and now she's defending you! Don't you realize how ungrateful you sound?"

Maybe I should have kept my mouth shut, but I couldn't help breaking in. "But Mom, that's not true at all! I didn't leave Cracker; she must have taken him from me. _She threatened to kill me_!"

Mom rolled her eyes. "Rebecca, don't be ridiculous. I'm still not sure if I should punish you for this, and you're not making yourself look good by pointing fingers." Of course I would be punished for this, even if I hadn't done anything wrong. I never had any luck. "Luckily-" I laughed inwardly at the irony of Mom using that word- "Erin has proposed an acceptable alternative." I groaned, already suspecting what was coming. "We think-" There was a "we" now. That couldn't be good. "-that if you had pokémon of your own, incidents like this wouldn't happen. Erin's told me about this program-" I tuned out of the conversation as my mom spit out a description of the "TSP" almost completely identical to the one I'd heard yesterday.

When I thought she was finished, I risked voicing my objections. "But _Mom, _I don't even _like _pokémon!"

Lux laughed and Mom grimaced. "Well, you're going to have to learn to like them, aren't you?" she voiced quietly.


	4. Chapter 4

Disclaimer: I don't own Pokemon.

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"Mom, I really don't think this is a good idea."

Mom smiled back at me. There was no question as to why. For years, the only argument I had been able to make against being sent out on a pokémon journey had been that I was just a kid (and, in Mom's eyes, an irresponsible one) and I couldn't possibly go out into the wilderness alone and survive it (that's not necessarily true; I'd been on enough camping trips to pick up a few tricks, but it worked to my benefit that she believed I was incompetent). And now Lux had come along with all her stupid abbreviated company names and ripped that argument to shreds.

I tried again. "Mom, I could die out there. That girl threatened to kill me back in Petalburg. For all you know, she's trying to lure me out there alone so she can rip my throat out."

Mom giggled (officially losing all respect I might have had for her) and turned back to my backpack. She had decided that I was too incapable to pack my own things after she saw me trying to sneak a video game into my bag, and had taken it upon herself to pack for me. "Oh, Rebecca, you're going to have so much fun! I already know you'll be a great trainer. I bet you'll have all eight badges in no time." It was easy to hear the happiness in her voice, and for a second I felt guilty for having such a bad attitude. Then I remembered a conversation we had immediately after Lux left to get some paperwork. Mom had been frustrated that I didn't seem to appreciate this "wonderful opportunity" and had told me that I wouldn't be allowed to come back home until I'd earned at least five badges. I had no sympathy for a woman who would kick her own daughter out of the house like that.

I was queuing up for a counter guilt trip when I heard our front door creak open, and the most annoying voice ever floated in from the living room. "_I'm ba-ack!_"

My mother actually clapped. "Erin must be back with the paperwork!" she exclaimed. I stared at her incredulously. Was there any possibility it could possibly be anybody other than ErinLux, seriously? Was there a need to act so excited about it? But she was already dragging me back into the dining room, and I had no chance to comment on her behavior before we were there, and ErinLux was standing triumphantly in front of us with a huge pile of papers. Well, okay, I exaggerate. It wasn't exactly _huge_. But it was more than a few.

ErinLux handed the pile to my mom, smiling at her as if they were the best of friends. "Just sign where it asks you to, and I'll fill in the information. It's all questions I can ask Rebecca the answers to myself, so you shouldn't have to bother," she said. To me this sounded rather suspicious, but Mom just nodded and walked into another room with a promise to be right back.

As soon as she left, ErinLux sat down on the couch and stretched. "Phew. I'm glad that's over. I was worried I'd never manage to get a new sign-up in time," she mumbled to herself. Then she turned to me. "You'll see, this won't be nearly as bad as you think. You might even have fun, if you let yourself."

I frowned at her. ErinLux sat up and sighed. "Look, I'm sorry we started off on the wrong foot. Can we start over, again, please?" I didn't give any positive response, but I didn't give a negative one either, so she continued.

"Hi, my name's Lux. Nice to meet you." She actually seemed sincere, possibly for the first time since I'd met her, and I _was _possibly going to be staying with her for a while, if Mom was serious about banning me from the house, so I thought that maybe forgiving (but certainly not forgetting) was a good idea.

"Rebecca." I was the first one to put my hand out this time, and we shook.

"So," Lux said, leaning back into the seat again and patting the place beside her, "what pokémon are you going to pick?"

I obediently took a seat where she indicated. "I get to pick?"

"Of course!"

"Out of how many?"

"All of them!"

"I just want you to know, I have a really awful knowledge of pokémon. I don't think I could name half of the ones out there."

"Well, you could pick bagon… it's really strong when it evolves, and they're hard to find in the wild. Or maybe… abra?"

"I refuse to have a pokémon that only learns teleport."

"Well, when it evolves…"

"And how exactly am I supposed to get it to evolve?"

When Mom came back ten minutes later, Lux was still instructing me on the pokémon I should get and the ones that you only picked if you were really stupid (because apparently personal preference plays no part in it). I think she nearly had a heart attack when she us talking in a somewhat friendly manner, and me taking a mild interest in my pokémon journey. Then she recovered and, with a huge smile on her face, handed the papers back to Lux. "I'll go get Becca's backpack. Then you two can be on your way," Mom said. She gave me a quick hug before rushing back up the stairs.

Lux laughed. "Your mother sure is excited about this, isn't she?" she asked. I gave a slight nod. "Well, I'm glad you waited to start, or I'd be out of a job right now!"

That reminded me of a question I'd been meaning to ask. "Will the people you work for really be that mad if you miss your quota once? You seem really worried about that."

"Well." Lux winced. "Well, this isn't necessarily the first time. I'm kind of on probation. It's just… people are always dropping out, you know? Not a very nice thing to do to me." She looked a little uncomfortable, so I decided to have mercy and change the subject.

"So… how's that zigzagoon colony coming along?"

-----

"Are we going to walk all the way there?" Of course we weren't, right? Lux had said the TSP HQ, where my paperwork would be turned in and I would collect my pokémon, was near Lilycove City, and it would take months to walk there. Then we would have to backtrack, since the first gym was in Rustboro.

"Of course not." Lux confirmed my thoughts. "I'm just waiting until we're farther from civilization before I release the birds. Come to think of it, now is probably the perfect time. Soon we'll be approaching Oldale."

Of course we were approaching Oldale. We'd been walking two hours, since we'd left my mom crying tears of joy and shouting orders to call her "the _second _you get your pokémon, do you hear me? The second!" But this was the first thing I'd heard about birds. Lux picked two pokéballs off of her belt and handed me one.

"That's Swellow," she said, "he'll be your ride for the trip."

I nodded, and pointed the pokéball at a place in front of me. "Swellow, go!" I shouted, trying my best to sound like an actual trainer and not like a little kid who has just stolen her big sister's pokémon and is practicing to be the bestest Pokémon Master the world has ever seen. Lux smiled at me before releasing her own pokémon, without a word.

Lux's bird was the strangest thing I had ever seen. It was a bird pokémon; that much was obvious. But it looked like it was covered completely in metal. Every part of it shined like silver.

"This is Lon. He's a skarmory. Isn't he gorgeous?"

Replace "gorgeous" with "a freak of nature" and you just about have it. I turned back to the bird she had given me, which really was gorgeous. His feathers alternated between bright cherry red and deep ocean blue. "Does the swellow have a name?" I asked.

Lux shook her head. "No, he's just Swellow. I don't really use him for much, but I brought him along to carry you to the HQ."

I thought that was kind of cold- because every creature deserves a name of its own, right?- but I didn't say anything. The swellow didn't seem to mind, anyway. He just seemed pleased that Lux was paying him any attention at all, to tell the truth. He was hopping around and chirping, and butting his head against her as if asking her to pet him. When she told him he was going to be carrying _me, _the disappointment he showed was heartbreaking. But Lux just rolled her eyes and muttered, "He's such a good actor, isn't he? Maybe I should enter him in a contest some time. Do you think there's a contest for most overdramatic?"

And then we were off.


	5. Chapter 5

The Pokémon Trainer Traveling Necessities Incorporated Headquarters was the hugest building the boy had ever seen. Of course, that wasn't saying much, as the only two places the boy could remember were a rural county back in the country his family used to live in and Fortree City. But that didn't stop him from deciding that this really must be _the _biggest building in the entire world. He turned to the girl standing behind him, pointing at the structure.

"Chance, I'm going to live in a house like that one day! Won't that be cool?" The boy was giddy with excitement. Why shouldn't he be? Today was the day he'd been waiting for ever since his parents had shown him the advertisement four months ago. No, scratch that. His entire life had built up to this day. The day when he would get his very first pokémon. And if he wanted to fantasize about life afterwards while he was at it he would, darn it!

Chance tried to smile at him, but it turned out more like a grimace. She was completely exhausted, and who could blame her? Wouldn't anybody, after having to put up with an over-excitable ten year-old boy all day? She comforted herself with the thought that this was the _last one. _When she had turned eighteen a month ago, Sal had decided that Chance was finally ready to manage a district. Instead of traveling all over the region taking care of whiny spoiled brats, she'd be able to keep an eye on trainers' progress from the comfort of her own office all day. _She'd _be the one making threats to disobedient employees, instead of having others threaten her (not that Chance had ever been disobedient, but she'd served as the fall guy for more than one of her friends' thoughtless pranks). And she wouldn't need to take care of another idiot kid again in her life.

The boy didn't seem to notice his audience's unresponsiveness, because he continued to chatter on until the pair was only a foot away from the door, and his flow of words came to a halt. Chance, still lost in thought, nearly walked into the glass. She shook her head a few times, to clear her mind, then turned to her young charge. "You ready, kiddo?" she asked. She smiled- for real this time. The boy nodded energetically. "Well then, let's go." She took his hand, and they walked in.

* * *

The Trainer Sponsorship Program had an entire floor to itself- floor 13. All superstition aside, walking up 12 flights of stairs really sucked. The boy would much rather have taken the elevator, but Chance had vetoed that idea outright, saying that she had claustrophobia and couldn't dream of letting him ride the elevator without her- what if they got separated?

And so it was that by the time the pair reached the TSP waiting room, the boy was dragging his feet along and looking much less energetic than when he had entered the building. Truthfully, that had been Chance's plan from the start. She'd never had a claustrophobic moment in her life, but the thought of bringing the boy to be approved by her boss while he was still acting like he had just ingested five pounds of sugar was enough to make her feel sick.

The room they entered disappointed the boy. He'd expected to find a bunch of pokémon trainers here, including a bunch of kids like him. He'd hoped that he would be able to gush over the upcoming adventure with another boy (since Chance was so unsatisfying to talk to) and convince an expert trainer to show the boy all of the super rare pokémon he must have. Instead he saw a waiting room much like one you would find in a doctor's office, or a Pokémon Center, only worse. It was painted a rather boring shade of yellow, and the only decorations in the place were a bunch of plaques on the walls. The boy wasn't interested enough to see what they were for. The only people in the room besides the receptionist, who was currently too absorbed in her work to notice the pair's presence, and two girls somehow managing to take up seven of the chairs in the room.

The first thing the boy noticed about the first girl was her hair. It was shoulder length, perfectly curled, and green. Not just "blonde with chlorine" green, either. It was Granny Smith Apple green. The boy decided she looked around the same age as his sister, who was fourteen. She was treating three of her chairs as a sofa, and had piled a bunch of blankets onto the fourth chair to serve as a pillow. She was currently examining her apparently recently manicured nails with a bored expression. She'd glanced up when the pair entered, but quickly lost interest and turned back to what she was doing before.

The boy couldn't see much of the second girl. She was sprawled across three more chairs, face down, so the only thing he could see was her long reddish-blonde hair.

As Chance walked in behind the boy, letting out a huff of annoyance as she did so (she'd decided the stairs weren't really such a good idea) the receptionist looked up, startled. Then she blushed, embarrassed for not noticing the two earlier. "Oh- I'm _so _sorry, ma'am," she spluttered, trying to put away the papers she had been writing on and only succeeding in dropping a few, "You should have said something! You haven't been waiting long, have you?" The boy was going to put the poor lady's mind at ease by telling her they had only walked in a second ago, but apparently it was supposed to be a rhetorical question. The woman was already starting to walk to the door behind her desk, calling back, "I'll just go see if Mr. Sal is ready to see you, okay? I'll be back in a few minutes."

The boy heard quiet, almost silent mumbling from off to his left, where the blonde girl was sitting up and rubbing her eyes. "What?" he asked, feeling it would be rude to ignore her.

She shot him a glare, and then said, much louder this time, "I _said, _if you get to see Sal before us I'm going to have to kill somebody. Do you know how long we've been waiting here? Becca, tell them how long we've been waiting here."

The green-haired girl looked at her watch. "Only about thirty minutes, actually. It just seems like longer because you've been complaining about how bored you were the entire time," she said.

The blonde folded her arms across her chest and glared at everybody in the room, and the other girl rolled her eyes. Chance, the boy had noticed, had been watching the conversation with a frown, but it turned to a smirk after a few seconds. "_Soooo,_" Chance began. Three pairs of eyes turned to her. "I wasn't expecting to find you here, Lux. What, did you come in for your resignation papers?"

"Why would I want to do something like that?" the blonde- Lux, the boy assumed- asked with a genuine look of confusion in her eyes.

Chance was smug. "Well, everybody knows that you lost a trainer last week. Just two months before observation, too. What a shame!" She wrinkled her nose at the green-haired girl. "Though it looks like you found a replacement pretty quickly." Chance turned away at this point, so she didn't see Lux stick her tongue out at her back. The boy did, though, and burst into a round of giggles that earned him stares from everybody still in the room.

"Hey, who's the kid?" Lux asked, twirling a long piece of hair around her finger and not really looking particularly interested in the answer.

Chance whirled around again, her face red. "It's none of your business, is it? Why do you always have to poke your nose into things that have nothing to do with you?"

The boy flinched, and Becca looked up at the conversation for the first time, startled, but Lux didn't seem even to have heard. She just grinned at the boy, motioning for him to come closer. The boy shot a glance at Chance, but she was just glaring at the floor, looking like she was fighting back tears, so he figured it was safe to approach the blonde girl. She tilted her head to the side, looking up at him. "How old are you, ten? It's been a long time since we've had a ten year-old in the program. Nowadays parents are always keeping their kids home until they're older. No wonder Chance is being so overprotective of you. Hey, what's your name?" The boy blushed and mumbled something, too low for anybody to hear, but before Lux could ask him to repeat himself the door opened.

The receptionist walked in and closed the door. "Mr. Sal will see you now." She sent a glare at Lux and Becca. "All four of you."


	6. Chapter 6

Disclaimer: I don't own Pokemon.

* * *

I couldn't deny it- my "pokémon journey" was going pretty freaking fantastic. Sure, it had started with my mother betraying me and a five-hour ride on a bird's back that left me sore for two days afterward. But _that _was before Lux had handed me my very own money card (saying, in the most serious voice I had ever heard from her, that it was _only _to be used on food, traveling clothes, hotel rooms, medicine, and pokéballs, and anything else was to paid for out of pocket) and then taken me to an ice cream shop so we could gorge on dessert. The next four days included trips to the mall, arcade, spa, amusement park, and pretty much every expensive restaurant we could find.

I never really wondered where the money came from, or felt bad that I was basically stealing it. After all, this was the business that had essentially ruined my life. Was I really supposed to feel bad for them? I _had _asked Lux once, but she had only responded by staring at me and saying, "It's a _money card_. A money card paid for by somebody that's not you. Why would you question it?" So I didn't. Question it, I mean.

Nor did I question the fact that in the four days we had been in Lilycove pokémon weren't even mentioned. I had a faint hope that Lux had completely forgotten why we were here, and if I didn't mention it to her I could just stay in Lilycove living off of somebody else's money for the rest of my life. Sure, it was far-fetched, but this is Lux we're talking about. It could happen.

Of course, not everything ends the way you think it should, which is why on the fifth day Lux stumbled into the room with a bunch of textbooks in her arms and dumped them in front of me, saying that Sal was _finally _back in town, so I could get my pokémon tomorrow and then we would leave. (The books turned out to be textbooks Lux was supposed to be teaching me with over the period over a month to make sure I was prepared for the journey. When I asked her about it, she brushed it off by saying, "Nine times out of ten cramming is a better studying technique anyway, right?")

I had the unpleasant feeling that after tomorrow this trip wasn't going to be so "pretty freaking fantastic".

* * *

I decided I liked this "Mr. Sal" within the first ten seconds of entering his office. For one thing, the moment we walked in he was by the door, ready to greet us. (His receptionist had ignored us for a good ten minutes before Lux had said loudly, "Hey Rebecca, do you think I should let Maj out to stretch his legs for a little while? He gets _so _pissy when he's been stuck in a pokéball for this long, and it seems like we'll be staying for a while…" I still had yet to meet the infamous Maj, but apparently the receptionist had at least heard of him, because at that exact moment she stood up suddenly and announced that she was going to talk to Mr. Sal and get us the earliest appointment she possibly could.)

He nodded his head at Angry Girl (a pretty girl about my height with long black hair who had blown up at Lux in the waiting room and hadn't stopped scowling since) and accepted a rather exuberant hug from Lux, and then turned to the two of us who were left over. "You must be Rebecca Collin," he said, shaking my hand and smiling warmly at me. Then he turned to the little boy who had walked in with us. "And _you _must be Onyx Walter."

The boy's cheeks turned scarlet. "I prefer to go by Xander, actually," he muttered. "It's my middle name."

I suppose Lux, like me, had resisted laughing up to this point because she thought it was a nickname, or a bad joke, but now she wasn't bothering. I bet the customers on the first floor could hear her. The only thing that kept me from joining in was the look of utter misery on the poor kid's face. Finally Lux managed to control herself enough to talk, although stray giggles still found their way into her speech. "You have got to… be kidding me… what evil, sadistic parents… would name their child… after an _onix_?"

The boy shuffled a bit, staring down at the ground, still looking completely humiliated. He coughed once and then said softly, "Where we used to live, there weren't wild pokémon, and we couldn't afford to buy one. So my parents didn't know much about the types… I was named after a type of rock, _not,_" he raised his head to glare at Lux, now looking more angry than embarrassed, "an onix."

That just made Lux laugh harder. "A rock! A _rock_! Oh, that's better! Imagine!" She stopped laughing suddenly and leaned forward to pat him on the head, saying in an entirely serious tone, "Worry not, kiddo, I shall think of a suitable nickname for you, and nobody needs ever to know." Onyx looked absolutely flabbergasted. After a week of sharing a hotel room with her I'd forgotten what seeing one of Lux's uber-mood swings for the first time was like. I wondered if I'd looked like that during our first conversation.

Mr. Sal (who had, in the light of Lux's outburst, been ignored) interrupted with a polite cough that brought all eyes in the room to him. I took a second to examine him. He looked old- maybe around sixty or seventy- but not the weak, lays-around-in-a-nursing-home-all-day-because-he's-unable-to-care-for-himself kind of old. In fact, he looked really energetic. I had a feeling that if I ran a race against him he'd win, despite the advantage of my youth. He also had this nice, warm smile that made me want to trust him immediately, although the paranoid part of my brain warned me that there were plenty of evil, sick people capable of smiling just like any normal person.

"Well, now that we're all acquainted," he said, "we've got some business to talk about."

"No we don't," Lux whined, throwing herself into one of the empty chairs. "You approved Becca's papers, right? We've got less than two months for her to get her first badge, and she doesn't even have her first pokémon yet! We don't have time to sit around talking. Bring 'em out, bring 'em out!"

Mr. Sal's smile turned mischievous. "But did you not just spend an entire week sight-seeing all over Lilycove and gorging yourself on ice cream and-" he shot a glance at me, "getting manicures? You didn't seem to be in such a rush then." I blushed and pushed my hands into my pockets, where nobody could see them. Could I help it if I wanted to enjoy one last bit of society before I was forced into the wild?

Lux pouted back. "That's 'cause you've been away all week, and we needed you to sign Becca's papers. What else were we supposed to do?"

The man shook his head and sighed, saying, "You really are impossible to please, aren't you? Fine. If you stick around to listen to what I have to say, I'll delay your observation by a month."

"Deal." Lux sat back in her chair, grinning. Across the room Angry Girl narrowed her eyes, but nobody else seemed to notice.

"Well, I might as well get straight to the point," Mr. Sal said. "You both have had some issues with the system in the past- yes, Chance, you too. And, since we've had the _wonderful_ luck of both of you being here at the same time, I've decided it would be best if you did a joint mission this time." There were a few seconds of absolute silence. "I mean that I think the four of you should travel together," he clarified helpfully.

Immediately the entire room burst into argument.

"We've only got two months! And you know Chance always spends three weeks _shopping_…"

"That woman _scares _me!"

"I've already got to deal with one kid, now you saddle me with _three_?"

The boy just stood there, strangely quiet.

When we stopped yelling at him, Mr. Sal was still smiling the exact same way he was before. He didn't seem the slightest bit moved by our protests. In fact, the next thing he said was, "It doesn't matter; I've already made up my mind. You can work out the details and traveling arrangements later. I really don't care, as long as you promise to stay as a group. In fact, maybe the two of you can talk about it _in the other room_, while I give Rebecca and Onyx their pokémon, _without your input_."

Angry- Excuse me, Chance- still seemed unhappy, but was capable of taking a hint. Lux, on the other hand, continued to sit in her chair glaring at Mr. Sal. Chance ended up dragging her away by the arm, still grumbling about the unfairness of it all.

For a while Onyx and I sat in an uncomfortable silence, while Mr. Sal typed on his laptop and mumbled to himself. Finally, the boy raised his hand (Lux must have been right about his age; he couldn't have been out of school for very long if he still raised his hand to ask questions) and, after realizing Mr. Sal was paying him no attention at all, cleared his throat and asked, "Um, Mr. Sal? Do we get our pokémon now… or something?"

The old man looked up at us, startled out of his trance. "Oh, yes, of course. I was just trying to find out the password to this thing. I always seem to forget."

I shifted in my chair, uncomfortable, then said, "Sir? Could the password be something like 'Massive Indigo Mankey'?"

Onyx stared at me strangely, but Mr. Sal just typed it in, and then nodded excitedly as he apparently got through. "How did you know?" He asked, but I just shook my head, blushing furiously, and pointed to a note on the table saying "MASSIVE INDIGO MANKEY" in big block letters. "Oh, yes," Mr. Sal said, looking back down at the laptop. "The note. I always write it to remind myself and then forget it's there." The boy looked away from me, apparently deciding I wasn't as exciting as I had seemed, and Mr. Sal kept typing.

Eventually Mr. Sal sat back, looking satisfied, and tapped a final button on his computer. The image from his screen was immediately projected onto the wall so that we could see it. It was really confusing- there were a bunch of tiny ovals on the screen, and as the pointer hovered over each one a picture of a pokémon would show up. Suddenly I gasped. "Are those all _eggs_?" Mr. Sal nodded. "But there must be a thousand!"

"Five hundred seventy-six." He grinned at us. "So. You both have some idea of what you want, right?" He must have seen my unease, because he said quickly, "It's okay if you don't. It would just make the process faster if you did."

Onyx started to raise his hand, and then caught himself. "I want a machop!" he shouted. "Then I'm gonna get a whole team of fighting types and be the best pokémon trainer ever!"

Mr. Sal winked. "Let's start with that machop, okay? You can work on those other things later." Onyx blushed. Mr. Sal typed something into the computer and the hundreds of eggs were reduced to five.

The boy creased his eyebrows at the computer, looking from it to Mr. Sal back to it and finally to me. "But where did the other eggs go?" he asked finally.

The man laughed. "This isn't where the eggs are stored," he answered. "This is just a database to keep track. You can sort them in all sorts of ways, and compare their stats."

How could there be stats if they were just eggs? The question was burning me up, but I didn't ask. Then I would have to pay attention to the answer, and I was still focusing on finding an answer to my dilemma- how was I supposed to explain that not only did I not know which pokémon I wanted, I didn't even know the names of half the pokémon of the region?

It's not like Lux had refused to talk about it with me. We'd been sort-of discussing my pick since the day I'd left home, when she'd told me that abra _was not _a stupid, thank you very much. But attempts at serious conversations with Lux tended to devolve very quickly, without me even realizing it. I'd once asked if eevee was worth getting, and somehow ended up listening to a ghost story about a flareon that had started a huge fire and burned down a town fifty years ago. According to Lux, the ghosts from that town hunt down and kill eevee trainers on the anniversary of the fire, and that's the reason eevee are so rare and expensive. (Unsurprisingly, when I later visited the library and mentioned the story to the librarians, they all laughed and said I had a great future writing fiction.) Some rare times she could manage not to get distracted, but then she would always talk about strategies you should use for certain pokémon, without actually giving me any advice on picking.

So when Mr. Sal told me that it was my turn (Onyx had picked his machop while I was zoned out, and was now sitting and staring at it gleefully) I was still totally unprepared. But when he asked me if I was ready to pick, I responded the only way somebody possibly could to a question like that. "Of _course _I'm ready. I've been ready. But, you know, that's a pretty cool system you have there. Could I mess around with it a bit? Maybe look at all the different eggs you have there? Who knows, maybe I'll see one so cool it'll change my decision." That's me: Rebecca Collin, queen of stalling.


	7. Chapter 7

Disclaimer: I don't own Pokemon or Hershey's or... any other companies I might have referenced in this.

A/N: This chapter is actually more like two mini-chapters spliced together. The first one is more like a short transition chapter between the last one and the next one. The second one was put here because I felt bad that Chance wasn't mentioned once in the first. It doesn't take place in the story timeline, and doesn't have much relevance to the plot, besides the...

_Warning: Evil Foreshadowing of DOOM_

* * *

"Okay," Lux announced from her perch on a fence only three feet away from our makeshift "battlefield". (Apparently she thought that was enough. Personally, I was _really _hoping a stray attack ended up knocking her on her butt. Not that I wish her ill or anything. It would just be incredibly funny.) "This is a one on one match-"

"Like we didn't know already? We've only _got _one pokémon each."

"-no holds barred, first trainer to wipe out buys ice cream for all of us. I expect no less than three scoops, and sprinkles-"

"_Luuux_."

"Right. I'll keep my order for later. Okay, you can start now."

Which was so astoundingly anticlimactic that I _had _to comment on it, even if it was only to shout, "Lux, you fail as a referee. _Epically_."

Lux stuck her tongue out in an amazing show of maturity, but was unable to respond because Onyx (slash Rocky slash Road slash Bungee slash Gopher slash Bugs: all nicknames Onyx had managed to pick up over the last month. No, they will not be explained; I don't even know where sixty percent of those came from. Maybe someday I'll be able to understand how Lux comes up with these things, but for now I'm just as happily ignorant as the next person) chose that moment to burst in with, "Are we _ever _going to actually battle, or are you guys just going to sit there and argue all day?" Beside him his machop was stomping around and flexing his muscles.

"Show off," I muttered. Then I said louder, "Just don't start crying when we kick your butts into next week! Let's go, Finn!" I waited for an awkward moment while my hoppip shuffled around on my head unhurriedly and then hopped down, floating the entire way.

Before he had even touched the ground the machop had reached him and was throwing punches almost too fast to keep track of. Finn squealed and twirled out of the way, although a fist still nicked his side and sent him twirling to the ground a few yards away.

I cursed mentally. The machop's wild flailing could hardly be called an attack, but if he managed to land a direct hit on Finn it would still knock him out. After all, machop are incredibly strong pokémon, and I knew from experience that Finn was not the most resilient creature. "Quick, Finn, get up! You need to get in the air so he can't reach you!" I shouted.

At the same time, Onyx hollered, "Crusher, use low kick!" (From the sidelines, I heard Lux add, "Off with his head, Powhatan!" One wonders how you are supposed to cut off the head of a hoppip, but I'm sure Lux could have found a way.)

The machop had nearly reached its target, and Finn was barely stirring. At this point he surely wouldn't have time to become airborne, so I made a quick decision. "Use giga drain, quick!" I yelled. At point blank range maybe the attack would drain enough energy to make the machop pause and give Finn time to escape. It was better than the alternative, at least.

The plan worked. A second later the machop was stumbling around, trying to get its bearings, while Finn was floating above him, looking thoroughly rejuvenated from his earlier crash landing. "Finish him off with another giga drain, Finn!" I shouted, excited to see victory so close.

The machop wasn't "finished" with that attack. Or with the next. After all, the situation was basically the inverse of before: Finn was not very powerful, and the machop was _very_resistant. But Finn was still out of the machop's reach, and the machop lost strength with every attack until he keeled over, ending the battle in a manner equally as anticlimactic as the beginning.

Onyx frowned, returning the machop to his pokéball. "That was cheating," he muttered, glaring at the ground.

"That was _boring_!" Lux echoed. "But you still owe me ice cream. In fact, because you just made me watch that entirely pathetic battle, I now demand _four _scoops, and whipped cream."

I sighed, patting Finn on the head. He was obviously very pleased with himself; he was cooing happily and every now and then would break away from me to twirl through the air as if he was dancing in excitement. Hopefully he wouldn't notice Onyx and Lux's complaining any time soon. "What did you expect, Lux?" I asked, gently returning Finn to the top of my head. "We're both beginning trainers. We've only had our pokémon for a month. For Mew's sake, my only pokémon is a hoppip, and he only knows one attack that can do damage. How exciting did you expect it to be?"

Lux frowned and then nodded. "You're right, Finn couldn't help it. Rocky, though… low kick? What were you thinking? Your opponent was a _hoppip_, they only weigh one pound!" As Lux continued to correct _every mistake _Onyx had made in our short battle (including a few I'm sure she made up; I don't recall Onyx ordering the machop to go for Finn's neck, causing the pokémon to hesitate as he wondered exactly where a hoppip's neck was, and leading to my eventual victory. Sometimes I think I'd like to live in Lux's world; apparently there you can bend reality whenever you want to make a situation more interesting.) Onyx glared daggers at me. I felt kind of guilty, but I hadn't _meant _to redirect Lux's ridicule to him. I just wanted her to leave me alone.

"So when do you think we can move on to Mauville City and challenge Wattson?" I asked, trying to change the topic.

Lux sniffed. "Onyx just lost a battle against a _hoppip. _I don't think _he'll _be winning any gym battles any time soon."

Onyx glared harder. Now the daggers were swords, and dripping with poison.

"Seriously, though," Lux said, twisting a piece of hair around her finger. "Neither of you are as powerful as you think. You both beat Roxanne because you had a type advantage, and she's a pushover anyway. But could you win if you didn't have that on your side?" We were silent for a moment, and then Lux started talking again. "Anyways, gyms aren't what we should be worrying about. Rebecca has an examination here in Rustboro in three days, and Onyx's is two days after that in Verdanturf. We need to prepare! And is somebody going to get that ice cream or what?"

I sighed, resigned to being the one to run the errand if I ever wanted Onyx to talk to me again. "I'll do it," I said. As I left the tiny park we'd been battling in, I heard Onyx and Lux continuing the conversation without me.

"You keep talking about these "examinations", but you haven't told us what they are. How are we supposed to prepare if we don't know what's coming?"

"We're not supposed to tell you anything about it because that would be cheating."

"Oh."

"They're just like gym battles except you don't have to beat them- just impress them enough to let you pass. Since yours is in Verdanturf you'll be up against-"

Finally I was too far to hear what they were saying, but I didn't need to hear any more. I reached the ice cream parlor two blocks away with one thought in my head.

_She'd better help _me_ cheat too_.

* * *

Solaceon Town is an incredibly disgusting place. Its main attraction is a so-called daycare center, but everybody (except possibly Erin, who is still reaching over the gate trying to get a mareep to lick her hand) knows that it's really a place where trainers send their pokémon so they can mate and have oh-so-adorable-how-cute little baby pokémon. The number one moneymaker and tourist attraction in this town is a _brothel_ for pokémon. Now tell me it isn't disgusting.

"Erin, let's _go._I don't like this place," I whine, fully aware of how like Erin I sound and hating it immensely, but unable to do anything about it. I can tell she's about to start asking questions, so I cut her off saying, "It smells. Arceus, how can people stand to _live _in this place?" After all, I don't need to corrupt Erin's mind, too. I'd prefer for one of us, at least, to remain blissfully unaware.

Erin is unhappy, but eventually I manage to tear her away from the fence with promises of ice cream after dinner. Ice cream: Erin's own personal form of crack, and a potential bribe that never got old. In my opinion, the greatest invention since portable music players (except those are more recent, so maybe ice cream was just _the_ first great invention of our time).

I don't plan on making any stops on the way out, but then I am reminded of the pokéballs we no longer have because Erin used them to try to catch a rare pokémon on the road (it later turned out that they didn't work because the pokémon already belonged to a trainer, and he wasn't very happy to learn somebody had been trying to snag his prized possession, even if we hadn't known). Then I am reminded of the Repels that Erin threw away when I wasn't looking, because she said it was cheating. And the pokémon food that we ran out of three days ago because you-know-who forgot to call her pokémon back into their Poké Balls at night and they broke into our bags; we'd had to keep our pokémon in their pokéballs ever since so that they wouldn't get hungry.

So in the end we make a detour to the Poké Mart.

I make my purchases and am ready to go within the first five minutes. Erin is slower, as per usual. First she lets her luxio, Static, out in the middle of the store so that she can try a sample of each and every kind of treat the store carries before deciding on just one. Then, when she's finally picked everything she wants (totaling to some ungodly amount, because nobody's ever taught her how to bargain shop), she insists on chatting up the storekeeper.

The man, like most of the people who live in Solaceon Town (the one good thing to its name) is incredibly friendly, and doesn't seem to mind the little kid distracting him from his job (it's not like the store was that crowded anyway), so at least the situation isn't _quite _as embarrassing as it could have been. But I can sense impending doom when I hear Erin brag excitedly, "Hey, didja know my birthday was yesterday?"

The man grins. "No, little lady, I didn't. How old are you, now? Twelve?"

It would be _so easy _for Erin to just nod right now. Just go with the flow. She's always looked older than she is (in complete contrast to her personality, which always seems a year or two behind where it should be), and since that had been the age he'd guessed it wasn't like he was going to doubt her. But of course Erin has never understood the right time to keep her mouth shut, so instead she responds happily, "Nope! Ten."

The man's grin falters. He glances from Static, who had obviously been in training for longer than a few days, to the Trainer Card he's just swiped to pay for Erin's purchases that claims she turned ten an entire year ago. Her mother had it made so that Erin could leave home at the same time as me, assuming (correctly) that if Erin set off on her own they would have found her body lying in a snow drift a week later. But motives didn't really matter; the fact of the matter was that nowadays, with Team Galactic fresh in everybody's memories, the Pokémon League had become ten times stricter about trainer safety, and something like a forged Trainer Card could get everybody involved put in jail.

I wonder exactly how poisonous Repel is to a human. If I poured an entire bottle into Erin's soup, would she die or just become extremely ill? What if I didn't bother to dilute it at all, and just replaced the water from the bottle she carries with her everywhere with it? Would something like that be easy to detect in an autopsy?

And then the man laughs, patting Erin on the head. "You're starting on a criminal record already, huh? I'd hate to see how long it'll be when you're an adult," he says a bit too loudly, drawing stares from the few other people in the store. _Then _he thinks to lower his voice, whispering, "I'd get myself a _real _Trainer Card pretty soon if I were you, young lady. I hear the Elite Four run some pretty extensive background checks." Then he winks and waves us out the door before we have a chance to say goodbye.

Now I _really _want to get out of this place. What if that man changes his mind about letting us go? What if he remembers that the League pays money to anybody who can give them tips to find criminals? What if Erin spills her guts to _another _random stranger who isn't quite as nice?

With that last question in mind, I grab Erin's arm to get her attention. "From now on, don't talk to _anybody _unless I tell you to, got it?" I hiss, pulling her behind me in my rush to leave the town. Erin looks like she is going to argue, but I shoot her a glare and she stops. Then the ever-present smile that has somehow remained even through the whole fiasco disappears, and instead she looks like she's about to cry. I feel bad for about five seconds, and then I remember that the events of this _entire day _have been her fault. I keep walking. Erin and Static follow: Erin still looking depressed, Static looking stuck behind defending her trainer or laughing (or the luxio equivalent) at her.

We're barely out of the city when I hear somebody yelling. I ignore them. If they're yelling for _us_ it can't be something positive, anyways. A minute later the person catches up, and surprisingly I recognize her. She's Isabel Reynolds, another beginning trainer we'd run into and battled in every major city we'd been through so far and whom I am becoming increasingly certain waits behind just to see us.

"What's up? You guys looked like you had a herd of houndoom on your heels!" she asks, laughing and petting her own houndoom, Shadi (pronounced shu-DEE in a weak attempt to hide the fact that Isabel, like Erin, had fallen into the trap of naming her pokémon after its type).

I hesitate, but I doubt that another kid would turn us in. Not to mention that Isabel is the one who taught Erin how to shoplift back in Hearthome City when they wanted to get accessories for a contest- I hardly think she's going to be a pillar of morality now. "Erin nearly got us arrested again," I say, glaring back at her for added impact.

Isabel laughs. "Again? Without my help, even. I must be having a positive influence!" Then she turns to the evil-doer herself. "Happy belated birthday, Lux!" she says, hugging her. It's one of Isabel's strange quirks that she never refers to trainers by their real names; instead, she uses some form of whatever pokémon they battle with most often. Through the same process I managed to pick up the nickname Chance, even though my chansey had evolved a while back. When questioned about it, she only rolled her eyes and said, "Well what am I supposed to call you? Bliss? I'll sound like I'm talking to a piece of chocolate!"

When Erin remains silent, Isabel pulls away and glances between us. "Is something wrong?" she asks.

"Just Erin being stubborn. You can talk now, okay? Just try to stay quiet about that body in our basement." She's still glaring and refusing to talk, but I can see her fighting a laugh. That's one thing I like about her: she can't hold a grudge to save her life.

We start walking again, although with Isabel and Shadi beside us the tension is noticeably lower. "So what are you guys going to do once you get to Veilstone?" Isabel asks during a lull in the conversation.

"We aren't going to Veilstone," I correct.

Isabel and Shadi exchange identical _"poor Chance has lost her marbles (again)"_ looks, and then Isabel says, "Isn't that where this road goes?" She checks her map app to be sure.

_One _of the places. But I plan on going there last and only staying long enough for us both to get Maylene's badge. It's a pit full of criminals and drug dealers and murderers."

Isabel looks amused. "Then you should fit right in!"

"Isabel!"

"Oh come on, you're over exaggerating. It's just got a bad reputation because it's got the casin- I mean, Game Corner."

"It was also where the main headquarters for Team Galactic was."

"_Was_. They've cleaned the place up since then." I'm still thinking of how to respond to that when Isabel changes the subject. "So where _are _you going?" she asks.

"Celestic Town," Erin says, speaking for the first time. "But the only thing she wants to go there for is to look at cave paintings and stuff. They don't even have a gym! How stupid is that?"

Isabel gasps, looking enlightened. "I know! How about you come with me to Veilstone and Chance can go ahead and look at her cave paintings, and then she can catch up with us! And then she doesn't have to stay there any longer than she wants to!" She's grinning and looking proud of herself for coming up with such a _stupendous _idea. Erin is giving me puppy dog eyes. What the heck am I supposed to say to that?

"I don't trust you two alone by yourselves. Especially not after the whole incident at Hearthome." Both of their faces fell. "So I guess I'll just have to go with you." Immediately I'm tackled by three bodies (the third being Shadi; I could have done without _that_) and forced into a group hug. Static is still standing in the same place, giving me a look that I interpret as either _What have you gotten us into, you idiot_ or _If this girl corrupts my trainer I'm going to kill you and rip your head off and eat it. _I probably deserve it.

So now I'm heading into the city with the highest crime rate in the entire country, _including _Kanto, Johto, Sinnoh, and Orre. Moreover, I'm planning on staying there for a week while my best friends go consort with criminals at the casino. Arceus, this sucks.

The worst thing, though, is that I can't even say this is the worst day of my life. The worst thing is that I can't even say this is in the top ten worst days of my life so far. The worst thing is that I can think of twenty other days in the eight months I've been traveling with Erin that were worse than this. Arceus, my life sucks.


	8. Chapter 8

A/N: Okay, I... really dislike this chapter... I kept getting stuck and having to rewrite stuff. Finally I just posted it even though I'm not happy with it. Sorry.

* * *

I suppose that at some point I should explain why, given the choice of more than five hundred pokémon eggs, I would pick a _hoppip_, one of the most useless pokémon in existence. There _is _a story behind it, besides me just being an utter moron, although telling it will probably make me sound not only more stupid but incredibly selfish and mean as well.

While I was messing around with the computer that day, Mr. Sal had been describing exactly how the system worked to Onyx. I was only half listening, but what he said didn't seem that interesting anyway. For a while he talked about a division of the TSP whose sole purpose was to research the parents of the egg and predict the stats and techniques of the baby, which was much less exciting than the scenario _I _had imagined for how they figured those out. I was examining the stats for a finneon- some pokémon from outside of the region; I figured that if it didn't come from Hoenn I'd at least have an excuse for not knowing anything about my own pokémon- when I heard the conversation change to a different subject.

"Usually an egg has to be held by a trainer in order to hatch, but if it's in one of our incubators for too long it'll hatch on its own. Then we have to send the pokémon to a breeding facility. It wouldn't be fair if we let sometrainers start with already hatched pokémon, now would it?"

"How long is too long?" Onyx asked.

"Between two and five years, usually. You have to take into account that some pokémon take longer to hatch even with a trainer. Although…" He trailed off, and then returned his attention to the conversation. "There is one egg we've had for _fifteen years_."

Wow. That was interesting. An egg older than I was. That pokémon had some pretty impressive procrastination skills. I applauded it for its effort.

"Why?" I asked. Mr. Sal looked surprised to hear me. In fact, I got the feeling he'd forgotten I was in the room at all. "Didn't anybody who heard that story find it interesting enough to want the egg, to… I dunno, find out why?"

Mr. Sal smiled. "Oh, we know why," he said. "It's because it's too weak to get out by itself. And that doesn't exactly make a trainer want to have it _more_. Besides, it wasn't a very strong type of pokémon in the first place. It's only a hoppip."

I mulled that over for a minute. I wasn't exactly sure what a hoppip was, and was too embarrassed of my ignorance to ask, but obviously Mr. Sal didn't think it would be a good pick. Then again, he was used to trainers aiming to be "the best". I just wanted to get my five badges and then go back home. Besides, I could always get stronger pokémon as I traveled…

"I'll take it," I said.

There was a shocked silence. Finally Mr. Sal spoke, his voice strained. "You shouldn't let your emotions make decisions for you, Miss Collin. Just because you feel sorry for it-"

"I don't feel sorry for it." I _wasn't _sorry for it. Truthfully, I was jealous of it. This creature had managed to spend _fifteen years _floating around in an egg without a worry in the world. I'd had a plan like that once- how had it worked out for me? If _I _couldn't lead a peaceful life at home like I wanted, why should this pokémon?

And so my friendship with Finn had been founded on an attempt to ruin his life. I warned you that the story would make me sound selfish and mean, didn't I?

* * *

Rusturf Tunnel is very dark and very dusty. Fortunately for travelers it's also very short and doesn't branch off at all, so you can get to the other side just by keeping your hand on the wall. Unfortunately, that's not why I was here. I was here… to get a whismur.

Apparently the only "examiner" in Rustboro was some chick whose pokémon were all related to music. Therefore, the best strategy to use against her was to catch a whismur. Or so Lux had told me. Apparently they're unaffected by sound-based attacks.

Speaking of Lux… I hadn't heard anything from her in five minutes. She said it was impossible to get lost in here, but she had also said that this place was "teeming with whismur", and I hadn't seen a single one yet. I wasn't taking any chances. "Lux?" I called, as loudly as I thought I could without scaring away every pokémon in the tunnel.

"Yeah?" She was farther ahead of me than I thought, so I sped up, tripping over a rock in the process and landing flat on my face. "Rebecca?"

"Sorry," I muttered, picking myself up and checking to make sure I hadn't hurt anything too badly. I struggled for a moment to think of a good topic of conversation, so that I would be able to find her again. "So, how do you know so much about, er, music girl? You weren't able to tell Onyx nearly so much about his test." In fact, Lux had given me an entire list of the pokémon my "examiner" uses, the moves those pokémon know, and the strategy that she uses against challengers most of the time. Unfortunately I still hadn't heard of half the pokémon on it. What the heck is a chatot, anyway?

I heard a sort of purring sound, and for a second I wondered what the heck Lux was doing. Then it hit me; that was the voice of Lux's… electric x-ray vision monster thing. Honestly, I wasn't sure what it was. But she'd told me that she didn't have any pokémon that could create light with her when I'd asked! That lying-

"I traded Yuki some pokémon, once," Lux said, interrupting my thought. "She wanted some pokémon from Sinnoh but didn't have the time to go there and catch them herself. So I traded them to her, like the nice person I am. And then she had the nerve to say the pokémon I traded her made ugly music! Can you believe it? Static smelled a whismur nearby, so be on the lookout."

I shut my mouth, which had been open to respond to her first complaint. Or maybe to complain about her not mentioning that she had brought Static along. Anyway, I'd been about to say something, and now I wasn't, because when you were trying to catch an easily scared pokémon like whismur you should be quiet, right? Right?

That lasted about five seconds before Lux chose to resurrect the dead conversation with, "Why do you think that unruly is a word, when ruly isn't? That doesn't make any sense, does it?"

I stared at the direction her voice came from in utter disbelief. Honestly though, it didn't create nearly the same effect when you couldn't see the person you were staring at. "Maybe ruly used to be a word and now it's not anymore," I said, finally. Maybe if she got an answer she'd shut up.

"But-" Lux was cut off by a loud roaring sound. And then there was an even louder screech so piercing that for the first few seconds I couldn't think, let alone react. Then I returned to my senses… somewhat. The sound still overpowered everything, and my thoughts came in disjointed fragments that left my mind the second I thought them. "Loud sound… whismur… catch… pokéball…" I couldn't move. It was like the part of my brain that controlled everything else had been shut down. The first full thought to cross my mind as the sound died off was, "If this keeps up long enough, will my heart stop?" It took me a second to realize the shrieking had stopped. Then another to realize that, yes, I was alive and fully functional. The pokémon was already drawing another huge breath by the time I remembered the empty pokéballs I was carrying. Luckily I had fairly good reflexes, and by the time it started another earsplitting scream there was already a pokéball heading straight towards it. The sound was cut off abruptly almost the second it started, and then there was complete silence as we waited to see if it had worked.

"_Owwww_. My poor ears. I think they're bleeding," Lux complained. At least Lux sounded mostly okay. She was still able to talk, at least, and presumably hear herself as well.

"I think that when I use this pokémon I'll bring along some earplugs," I muttered, getting on hands and knees to find the pokéball holding my brand new pokémon.

"Not so loud!" Lux yelled back at me, much louder than anything I had said. Maybe she _couldn't _hear herself.

My hand bumped against a round object. After a second of feeling it to make sure it was really a pokéball, I picked it up. "Do you think I should let it out? To see what it looks like?" I asked, realizing it was a stupid question as soon as I said it. There wasn't any light to be found in here, and Lux had already shown she was unwilling to use Static's electricity to see.

"Nah. We can look when we get out. Then, if it attacks, at least it won't be as bad. Echoes, you know?"

I nodded. It made sense, after all. I picked myself up and turned myself towards the Rustboro end of the tunnel. At least, I tried to. As I walked, I tripped over a rock and fell again. _I am totally getting a fire-type before I come back_.

* * *

Onyx ducked under a man's arm and pushed his way between two girls, who yelled insults at his back as he left. Among shouts of "Watch it, kid!" "Where do you think you're going?" and "Who do you think you are?" he managed to make his way to the fence separating the spectators from the battlefield.

Mentally, Onyx cheered. Somehow he'd managed to find the best possible place to watch the battle. From here he could clearly see both Chance, with a pokémon that looked like a mutated togetic, and her opponent, a scary looking boy with spiked platinum blonde hair and more metal on his body than anybody could possibly need. In front of him was a vicious looking sack-shaped yellow pokémon with leaves replacing its arms, and one covering it. Oh, and humongous fangs. A weepinbell? No, it must be a victreebel. Onyx had never seen one in person; after all, leaf stones were pretty rare. They were a bit scarier in real life than in the textbooks.

The battle was looking fairly one sided. According to the scoreboard, only one of Chance's four pokémon had fainted, whereas her opponent had lost two. And since the strange togetic look-alike was clearly a flying-type, it had an advantage over victreebel.

"Go, Chance!" Onyx yelled. "Beat him 'til he… 'til he's beaten, got it?" Instantly he regretted it. If Chance knew he was in the crowd here, she'd know he'd been beaten out of his own tournament before he'd even gotten to the semifinals. Luckily, she didn't seem to hear; she was too busy battling.

"Aerial ace!" She shouted. Her pokémon redirected itself towards the victreebel and picked up speed.

"Vine whip!" the boy told his victreebel. The pokémon's one long vine lashed out at the flying creature, hitting it square in the face. The pokémon didn't stop, but it slowed down enough to significantly decrease the damage done by the attack, and the victreebel was only knocked back a few feet. Less than a full second after the attack, the boy had yelled, "Sleep powder!"

The leaf partially covering the victreebel's mouth opened more, and a shining blue powder started to seep out. "Get ou-" Chance started to order, but she stopped when she saw her pokémon was already flying away from the area. Eventually the powder stopped spreading, and was left as a shimmering blue cloud surrounding the victreebel. Chance's pokémon flew in circles around the border, probably waiting for it to dissipate.

"You know, sleep powder would be so much more awesome if it was, you know, invisible. Instead of glowing. Then people wouldn't be able to make wimpy moves like that," a voice from behind Onyx said.

Before he had thought about it, Onyx had whirled around, bristling and ready for a fight, even if the person _was _a lot older and taller than him. "Chance is _not _a wimp! And if you're such an expert, why aren't _you _up there? What, are you so bitter because you got knocked out already? Did Chance knock you out? Well, that's no reason to- Lux?"

"I mean, do you know how much damage another aerial ace would have done from that close? It would have knocked him out in one hit! Even now she could do it. Sure, there's a huge cloud of sleep powder around him now, but Ten could make the attack before she fell asleep." Lux had her arms folded and was glaring up at the stage. She didn't look like she was having the best day, to say the truth. Her clothes were covered in dirt, and she had a bandage wrapped around her head. Rebecca, honestly, didn't look much better. It was kind of funny, when Onyx thought of how long she spent in the bathroom every morning curling her hair and doing Mew-knows-what else to make herself look absolutely perfect, to see her looking like a complete mess.

"Don't worry, Onyx, Lux is just acting like a little kid because nobody will show her sympathy for her imminent hearing damage. Feel free to ignore her," Rebecca muttered, refusing to take her eyes off the battle. Chance's pokémon was using psychic to attack from afar and try to extract victreebel from the cloud at the same time. The victreebel was sending wave after wave of razor leaves to attack, but they always missed.

"My ears were bleeding! There was internal damage! And it was all your pokémon's fault!"

"Your ears were bleeding because you were clawing at them. Should we get you one of those cones people put on pokémon to keep them from scratching themselves?" Lux gave a 'hmmph' and turned away. The victreebel had been defeated, presumably through repeated use of psychic. Now the boy had sent out an aggron.

"Oooh, that looks bad," Rebecca commented. "Do you think Chance's pokémon can win?"

"Well," Onyx said, glad that the topic had changed. "Aggron is a dual steel and rock type, and Chance's pokémon is a flying and normal type. So she's at a real disadvantage. If I'm right about it being an evolution of togetic, that is."

They waited expectantly for an answer from Lux, but were greeted only with silence.

Onyx returned his attention to the match. Chance's pokémon had managed to attack the aggron with a few water pulses, but in the end had been defeated by the stronger pokémon. Now she was fighting with a jynx. Well, this was an exciting finish. Ice was powerful against rock, but if aggron knew earthquake this battle could end badly. He leaned forward over the fence. Lux and Rebecca might be totally uninterested in Chance's battle, but he wanted to cheer her on. They were being mean, anyway.

A hand pulled him back. "Hey, I know! Why don't you help me train my new pokémon, Onyx? It'll be fun! More than watching this long, boring battle, at least."

The boy hesitated. He glanced from Rebecca to the battle and back. "I suppose she won't mind too much," he finally muttered, letting Rebecca take his hand.

"Awesome!" Lux yelled, startling all of the people around her. "I don't understand how you people can sit around and watch other people battle anyway. It's pointless. Self improvement comes through participating, not watching." She grinned. "And Arceus knows you need some self improvement, kiddo. After that horrible defeat by a hoppip yesterday, are you sure you're prepared for a whismur? Would you prefer a few days to prepare?"

And that stole away any doubts Onyx might have had. "Oh, it's _on_!" he yelled, running towards the Pokémon Center to pick up his machop.

"Do you think he realizes it's _me _he's battling?" Rebecca asked, staring after him.

"Doubtful. Oh, the selective hearing of a ten year-old."

"Hypocrite."

There was silence for a minute.

"Hey, Becca?"

"Yeah?"

"You wouldn't mind if skipped out on this particular battle, would you? I mean, I'd love to observe, but…"

"Wimp."

"Loser."


	9. Chapter 9

A/N: The plot has arrived! Or it does, like, halfway through the chapter.

* * *

"Is that _it_?"

True, Lux hadn't promised an all-powerful fighting machine, but I'd been expecting something a little more intimidating than _this_. Onyx poked the creature and it squirmed backwards, whimpering and acting as if the boy had just kicked it.

Onyx giggled. "Man, they always looked weak in textbooks, but they're even more pathetic looking in real life!" I shot him a glare, and knelt down to pat the whismur on its head. My touch calmed it down a little; Lux had made me transfer it into a Friend Ball after we left the cave so that I could start training it immediately, and now that was looking like a smart move. I felt bad brainwashing the poor thing into helping me, but I didn't have time to let it get used to me the fair way.

"It's okay, Han. Don't listen to him," I muttered to it, scratching it behind the ears. The whismur relaxed more, even leaning into my hand. Onyx bent to pet it too, and in an instant Han shifted from "peaceful" to "emergency" mode, shrinking away from both of us again. I sighed, sitting on the floor and staring at my new pokémon resignedly. "What am I gonna do with you?" I asked. In response Han looked down at the floor and started mumbling, almost as if ashamed of itself.

"We could start the battle?" Onyx was shifting from foot to foot excitedly. I didn't blame him; ten year-olds weren't exactly well known for their patience.

"Can't you see how nervous the poor thing is?" I asked. "She's not able to _fight_."

Onyx stared down at me in disbelief. "Are you kidding? Of course it's nervous: it's a _whismur_. It's not gonna get any better. You have to teach it to battle _eventually_."

Wisdom cometh from the mouths of babes. I felt kind of embarrassed having to take the advice of such a younger kid, but he was probably right.

"Okay, Han." I said, standing up and patting the whismur on the head. "You think you're good for a few practice battles?" Han squeaked and started shivering, and I felt more than a little guilty. But there wasn't anything I could do about it, so instead I just stood up, discreetly fishing out of my pocket the earplugs I had bought earlier that day. I'd be unable to hear any of Onyx's commands in order to counter them, but I didn't feel like being hit by one of Han's attacks again.

"You're _on_, brat!"

* * *

Chance had been searching for two hours before finding Onyx and Rebecca. Granted, a large percentage of those two hours had been spent being forced into conversations with people who recognized her from the tournament earlier, and another relatively large chunk of time had been spent trying to reach Lux's Pokétch to gripe her out for, according to various witness accounts, kidnapping Onyx, and the kids _had _ended up being in a relatively obvious place: the same empty lot Lux _always _used for battles when in Rustboro. That didn't mean she couldn't still be angry.

She found the two in the middle of a battle. Onyx looked exhausted, while his machop still looked pumped. Becca was in a state similar to Onyx, and Finn- wait, that wasn't Finn! Since when had Rebecca had a whismur? Oh, well, that wasn't her first priority. "_You_!" Chance yelled, marching full of righteous fury towards her young charges. Onyx and the machop reacted immediately, Onyx nearly jumping out of his shoes and the machop spinning one hundred eighty degrees in less than half a second to face her. Rebecca apparently hadn't heard her, though.

"Han, use uproar!" she yelled, altogether too loud herself. Chance reflexively covered her own ears. It wasn't enough to block out the sound completely, but at least she was able to remain upright, which was more than she could say for Onyx, who had been caught unaware and promptly collapsed. The machop seemed to be in pain, but that didn't stop him from lunging for the whismur and shutting it up by method of punching it into submission.

During the momentary lapse in the attack Chance lunged for the green-haired girl and shook her a few times, emphasizing every word with another shake. "What. The. Heck. Is. Wrong. With. You. Kid?"

Rebecca stared back at her. "Oh. Chance!" She smiled nervously. "I didn't know you were there!" She reached up and pulled some plugs out of her ears. At least that explained the complete obliviousness to the world. She pulled out what looked like a Friend Ball and recalled her whismur.

"Of course you-" _Wait. Calm down, Chance. Fighting never got anybody anywhere._ "Where's Lux?" _I need to beat the crap out of her for kidnapping my kid and then leaving him somewhere and not leaving me a way to contact her._ "We need to talk about official business matters."

"Um." Rebecca averted her eyes, probably seeing through Chance's mediocre façade that she was still _really _angry.

"We don't know where she is. She left, like, right before we got here. Oh, did you win the tournament?" Onyx had recovered and made his way over to Chance, giving her a big hug.

"Yes…" Chance said, trailing off. _Dang it_. Lux always had to be inconvenient, didn't she? "Well, look. Let's just go back to the hotel, okay?" Both nodded, the picture of obedience. It was almost enough to make Chance feel guilty for being too harsh. Then she remembered she was still angry. What had Onyx been thinking, leaving the tournament like that? "March." Rebecca and Onyx exchanged glances, and then started in the direction Chance pointed.

* * *

"So she's absolutely useless, right? How am I supposed to help the kind of girl who picks a hoppip for their first pokémon?"

"She's pretty though. Very marketable. Do you know if she can sing?"

"How'm I supposed to know-"

"Is she single?"

"Why do you even- You wouldn't want to date her, anyways. She's got an _awful_ attitude."

"Talk about pot and the kettle, huh?"

"Yeah, Lu, you're the last person I'd expect to hear complain about somebody's _attitude_."

"I don't know what you're talking about. I'm a pillar of sunshine and optimism."

"And mood swings."

"And mean pranks."

"And rebelliousness."

"All wrapped into one!"

Laughter filled the room.

Yuki was getting a little sick of waiting outside the door listening to the group's IQ lowering conversation, but was still another full minute before noon. A star like her couldn't arrive to a meeting early- she must be exactly on time.

The laughter died down.

"But, seriously-"

"Yeah?"

"What happened with the How case?"

"Hmm?"

"You know, store owner in Petalburg?

"Yeah? He plateaued and declined an offer of employment, so I offed him. It's the standard for that situation, no?"

"And then you left him there? Didn't try to hide the body or anything?"

"He was a well known person. It would have made a stir if he'd just disappeared. So I made it look like a robbery."

"And you used Maj? You think a weavile won't look out of place in Hoenn?"

"Honestly, were you trying to be caught?"

"Tell the truth. You're really buddy-buddy with Doom, right? You're the first person she'd tell about a change in plan. So what has happened to make you both throw caution to the wind like this?" There was something else, but it was really quiet and Yuki couldn't hear.

That was Yuki's cue. This was the perfect time in the conversation to step in. She checked her clothes for any imperfections, pulled herself up into perfect posture, and took a step into the room- no creatures as perfectly coordinated as she didn't walk: they glided. She was gliding into the room, a shining beacon in comparison to the vermin she shared a room with.

"Heeey, Yuki, you finally decided to join us!" the first and most obnoxious guest said.

"Yes, Lux. I _was _the one to call you all here today. It's not like I wouldn't show up."

"So why've you been standing outside the door for so long?" Furfur asked, gazing innocently at the irritated older girl.

Yuki flashed a bright, sunshiny smile. "I've been letting all of you catch up with each other, of course."

She remained silent for a moment, waiting for a greeting. The man sitting to her left coughed softly. "So wonderful to see you've made it here safe and sound, Yuki. I was starting to worry." Yuki did not bother responding to this. Reggie was her manager- he'd known perfectly well why she was late.

She turned to her last guest, who was lazing in a chair by the fireplace. "Looking hot as always, Yuki," he said, grinning.

Yuki fumed. This was not, by any means, the respect she deserved.

Seating herself in the second most desirable chair (asking Shar to move would be rude, and she was being disrespected already without giving them a reason to dislike her), Yuki cleared her throat to signal the start of the meeting.

"Today I have gathered the three examiners of the west coast for a very important reason."

"Like, with all words capitalized? A Very Important Reason?" That was Lux. Yuki had very carefully seated herself at an angle from which she couldn't see the annoying girl, but only _she _would ask such a question.

"Yes, and it involves _you _most of all." That shut her up. "As you all know, the role of examiners is to check into the background of every client that passes through our doors."

"So this involves she of the pretty, marketable attitude problem?" Shar asked.

"_Yes_," Yuki hissed, annoyed to be interrupted again. "You see, when I looked through her file I saw some very strange things that really should have been caught earlier. Mom's unemployed, right? And daughter's basically planning on sitting around doing nothing for the rest of her life. How is it that they think they can continue this lifestyle? So then I think, well, Daddy's got himself a money-making job and a pretty big nest egg built up. Funny that this dad wouldn't be mentioned anywhere in the file, right? So I dig a little deeper. Turns out Dad _is_ pretty rich. Guess who he is. Just. Guess."

Reggie is grinning: he already knows everything, because he helped her dig it up. Furfur's looking uncomfortable: she already knows too, somehow. Shar and Lux look way too calm for the situation at hand. "I dunno, Yuki, aren't you gonna tell us?" Lux asked.

Yuki gritted her teeth. "He's an Elite Four member, you idiot!" She considered continuing, but decided to let that sit for a bit.

Shar whistled. "That's some pretty important useless girl you picked up, Lu. You've got some amazing luck."

Yuki couldn't see Lux's face (curse her forethought!) and she wasn't saying anything, so Yuki went on. "Don't you realize how bad this could be? Let's say this girl's dad hears about us sponsoring his daughter- you know he'll probably want to investigate us, right? And what happens when he notices a disturbing pattern of missing people who participated in the TSP? You think he'll take us to the authorities? He _is _the authority! We'll be wiped out faster than you can say-"

She was cut off by Lux. "Wait, wait, you're not trying to say Doom doesn't know what she's doing, are you?"

"_No_, I'm saying _you _don't know what you're doing, and everybody knows it!"

There was a short silence, and then the room was filled with laughter.

"Yuki," Shar said, struggling to keep his own laughter back. "The only thing that _everybody knows_ is that Lux hasn't picked her own clients in years."

"Ever since Marly Rush-"

"Which, by the way, was a _brilliant _mess up on Lulu's part-"

"Doom's picked them all for me ever since." Suddenly Lux stopped laughing, and other two stopped soon after. "Moreover, every client Doom picks is an important piece to her, and she checks their background meticulously. She _knew _about this. _I _knew about this. I'm pretty sure the only people who didn't know about this were the brat herself and _you_, you useless excuse for a pawn. So, because your powers of deduction are obviously lacking, here's how this is _really _going to work out. You let Rebecca through. She stays in the system just long enough for Daddy to find out about us, and then, whoops, she dies! Dad comes after our blood, and, well, we retaliate. He dies in the battle, along with however many other Elites we can make look like an accident. He obviously won't be able to tell the public the story of his poor dead daughter who he abandoned for fourteen years, so we seem to be in the right, we're seen as heroes forever, and the public's _more _than willing to give all of the newly freed up leadership positions to us, who were attacked unjustly and have proven ourselves superior both morally and in battle to the previous Elite. Of course, it will make us look more realistic if some of our employees die in the battle as well. Want to volunteer?" She couldn't see her, but Yuki could imagine the sick grin on the Lux's face right now.

"Or?" Furfur said, prodding Lux in the side.

"_Or_. Rebecca proves to be a better battler than we thought. She gets all the way to the Elite Four and beats them all, and then plateaus. Then, _somehow_, her parentage slips out. Oops. Because everybody knows that the Elite are really selected based on their political connections, and are not really superior to any other plateaued trainer, she'll be a prime selection for an Elite the next time one is selected. Of course, we've won her over completely by then. And then we've got a foothold in the Elite Four, from which we can get anybody we want selected."

Nobody was laughing now. In fact, the silence in the room was chilling. _Were they serious_? "Those plans have so many flaws-"

"It wouldn't be the first time we kept a client around more for her connections than her battling talent," Shar said, boring his eyes straight into hers.

Yuki winced. Just a few minutes ago she had felt in complete control, and now…

She'd been out of the loop. There was no other way to say it. There was no question of who Shar's last comment was aimed at, either. Did she really have so little power?

"So you want me to let her through, basically."

"Basically."

"No matter how bad she is."

"If it's not too much trouble."

"I'd like it if you all left now."

At least she had power over her own building. _That much _she knew for certain. As each guest left, Yuki felt a little bit better.

"_Bye, _Yu_ki_."

"See you soon, 'kay?"

"You'll be calling me, right?"

And finally there was beloved silence.


End file.
